The Newry Go Team started with me and Carla watching the entire opening ceremony of the Olympics, all 4 hours of it! Not something I’ll be doing any time soon. The rest of the team didn’t arrive until Saturday night, so there wasn’t a great deal going on. I did see a poster advertising activities during the week in a shop in a Newry though, I was impressed.
On Sabbath we had lunch in the church hall, followed by a prayer time at a view point on top of the city. Then it started raining so we headed back to the Murphey’s. At evening worship the whole Southern Presbytery was there, I’d never seen Newry so full (seriously).
Our main outreach work was giving out literature and running 2 children’s clubs. On the literature side of things, we were giving out 3250 4you.ie magazines (someone nabbed the other 750!). I still don’t like the name, the articles within are much better.
The children’s clubs ran from Monday to Thursday, and as in previous years, were held in the Mourneview and Greenfields estates. Numbers picked up as the week went on, with about 30 children between the clubs by Thursday. Some of the children were disruptive at times, making telling the story at diffucult, but for the most part we got on fine. I’d post some pictures if any existed…
On Monday and Tuesday evenings we did door to door work in the two estates where the clubs had been running, and this was an encouraging time, especially on Monday. On Wednesday we had the children’s club in the afternoon because of the rain in the morning, but this turned out to be a blessing rather than a hindrance as way more kids came along (“Why did yous come at 11 anyway, we’re all sleeping then..”). Before lunch some members of the team sung psalms in Newry town city centre for about half an hour. Got a few weird looks, but some people did sit and listen. That evening there was a cookery demonstration, with a short epilogue. I can’t say much about it as I wasn’t there, but apparently 50 people came along, which is class. And way more than was expected.
Psalm Singers (note the Go Team t-shirts - click to enlarge)
Our sleeping arrangements were the guys at Sam and Dot’s, with the girls and Rodney and Ruth’s. Suited me, I got a double bed, a fry and plenty of words of wisdom from Dot. In the evenings we went to different members’ houses for tea. Well on two nights anyway.
Friday consisted of more open air psalm singing in the morning and a car wash in the afternoon. About 10 people not associated with the Church got their cars washed, and most of them came into the hall for coffee and a chat. One guy stayed for two hours.
Newry Go Team 2008: Me, Rodney, Josh, Jon, Erin, Anna, Debbie, Wendy, Stephen, Rachel, Simon, Carla and Shane
The future's bright, the future's orange
The RP website lists Newry as being “Without Pastor”, and while this probably is strictly true, fear not, for they are going to be very much “With Pastor” in the near future. It’s all quite exciting really. Keep praying for the members of the congregation to get more involved, and that in time, more will be added to their number.
It really was a fantastic week.
Tags: August 2008, Go Team, Newry, Newry Go Team 2008, Northern Ireland, Outreach, Reformed Presbyterian, RPC
Costa del Castlewellan
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